Layered, planar chemical reactors can be used for many tasks. One major problem with the layered planar chemical reactor is that the layers must be held in intimate electrical contact with each other. If the intimate contact does not occur, the internal resistance of the stack increases causing the overall efficiency of the chemical reactor to decrease.
A second problem with the layered planar chemical reactors is that larger surface areas increase the difficultly of maintaining consistent contact with the inner recesses of the layered planar chemical reactor.
Since both reactants are required to flow within the plane of the layered planar chemical reactor, at least four and up to six distinct layers have been required to form a workable cell. These layers are usually manufactured into two separate chemical reactors components. A chemical reactor stack is, then, formed by bringing layers into contact with each other. In forming the chemical reactor stack by contacting the layers, reactant flow must be allowed within the layers but reactants must not be allowed to leak from the assembled chemical reactor stack. The assembled stack usually has to be clamped together with significant force in order to activate perimeter seals and reduce losses associated with transport processes inherent in the reaction. Compressing layers together using brute force is inefficient and expensive.
A need has existed for a less expensive compact chemical reactor. A need has existed for a small compact chemical reactor capable of low cost manufacturing with fewer parts than the layered planar chemical reactor.
A need has existed for a small compact chemical reactor having the ability to utilize a wide variety of electrolytes. A need has existed for a compact chemical reactor capable of being easily scaled in micro dimensions.
A need has existed for a chemical reactor capable of being connected together without the need for external components for connecting the chemical reactors together. A need has existed for a compact chemical reactor with high aspect ratio cavities.
A need has existed to develop chemical reactors topologies or chemical reactor architectures that allow increased active areas to be included in the same volume, i.e., higher density of active areas. This will allow chemical reactors to be optimized in a manner different than being pursued by most chemical reactor developers today. The present embodiments meet that need.